3-003-721 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Jessop Monument, Codnor Park, Derbyshire, struck by lightning on the 8th July, 1861. Engraving from a photograph by Mr. J. A. Warwick. 'A fearful storm of thunder and lightning visited the locality of Codnor...injuring the Jessop Monument in an extraordinary manner. The monument was struck near the top by the electric fluid, which took the zigzag course shown in the Engraving, shattering many of the steps and dashing them, along with the ponderous stones forming the building, a considerable distance, till it came to the base of the building, where it forced the subscription-plate from its place, and, cleaving an immense block of stone beneath it, buried itself in the earth. The Jessop Monument is ninety feet high, and, being built upon a lofty eminence, commands a beautiful and extensive view of the Erewash Valley. It is situated nearly in the centre of the Butterley Company's large ironworks and coal-fields, of which the late William Jessop, Esq. (to whose memory it was erected), was many years the active managing partner...It was built of gritstone, with a ponderous rustic base, surmounted by a circular column...and a winding staircase worked into the solid stone, thus forming, as it were, the vertebral of the building'. From "Illustrated London News", 1861.